Version 0.6
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Rainmeter is a customizable
resource meter that can display various performance data in different
formats. Currently Rainmeter supports these measures:
The data can be displayed in a histogram, a bar, bitmap frames or just plain numbers. The application is a Litestep LoadModule plugin, but it can be used without the Litestep as well. You can use it even with the normal Explorer-shell if you like. Rainmeter also implements Litestep's wharf-interface so that it can be used with the lsbox-module. It might also work in a real wharf but this has not been tested as Rainmeter is not meant to be used in a wharf. Rainmeter is developed and tested on Win2k, but it should work on Win9x also though Win9x is not officially supported. And no, Rainmeter does not measure how much it rained last night (at least not yet ;-) |
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Installing
for Litestep
To install just copy everything from the zip-file to a Rainmeter-subfolder in your Litestep-folder (i.e. wherever $litestepdir$ variable points to. Usually C:\Litestep\). You don't need the Rainmeter.exe if you are using Rainmeter as Litestep plugin, but there is no harm keeping that also in the folder. Also do not in under any circumstance replace your original lsapi.dll with the one that is in the Rainmeter's archive. The supplied lsapi.dll is only for the systems that doesn't have Litestep installed. After copying, open your step.rc and add following line: LoadModule $litestepdir$Rainmeter\Rainmeter.dll ... and recycle. The configuration of Rainmeter is done in a Rainmeter.ini file and not in the step.rc. Installing for some other shell (e.g. Explorer) Copy all the stuff in the zip-file to some location (e.g. C:\Program files\Rainmeter\). You also need the lsapi.dll somewhere in the path or in the same folder as Rainmeter.dll. You can give the Rainmeter.exe the ini-file as command line argument. The argument is used the same way as RainmeterIniFile step.rc command. |
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Configuration of the meters
are done in a Rainmeter.ini-file. The Litestep's
step.rc only has one optional entry, which can be used to define the
configuration.
The ini-file is divided into three parts. All the general settings are put under [Rainmeter] section. After the general stuff comes the measures, which do the actual measuring. After the measures comes meters, which are visual representations of the measures. There can be many meters for one measure. Here is some info what goes where: Step.rc RainmeterIniFile The default behaviour (i.e. if RainmeterIniFile is not given) of Rainmeter is that is scans all the subfolders under the Rainmeter.dll's folder and checks for the configs. Note that this is different than in earlier versions where Rainmeter defaulted to the Rainmeter.ini in the Rainmeter.dll's folder. General settings for Rainmeter These must be put under [Rainmeter] section. Background WindowX WindowY SavePosition AlwaysOnTop Draggable Update HideOnMouseOver StartHidden GatherStatistics LeftMouseDownAction RightMouseDownAction LeftMouseUpAction RightMouseUpAction General settings for the measures Each measure needs to have a unique name, which defines a section in the ini-file for that measure. The name needs to be put inside []-characters. The meters use the section names to bind to the measures. Check the supplied ini-file for example. Measure
InvertMeasure IfAboveAction IfAboveValue IfBelowAction IfBelowValue Measure specific settings Some of the measures can have special settings. NetIn NetInSpeed NetOut NetOutSpeed FreeDiskSpace Drive Plugin Plugin Registry RegKey RegValue MaxRegValue General settings for the meters After the measures are defined comes the meter sections. Each meter needs to have an unique name, which is defined like with the measures. MeasureName X Y W H Meter
Meter specific settings The meters can have special settings. Histogram SecondaryMeasureName PrimaryColor SecondaryColor BothColor PrimaryImage SecondaryImage BothImage String FontColor Prefix Postfix FontFace FontSize StringAlign StringStyle Scale AutoScale Percentual Bar BarColor BarImage BarOrientation
Bitmap BitmapImage BitmapFrames |
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A Rainmeter plugin is a DLL that exports these functions: UINT Initialize(HMODULE instance, LPCTSTR iniFile,
LPCTSTR section, UINT id); The Initialize function is called when the measure is initialized. The function returns the maximum value that can be measured. If the maximum value is unknown the function should return 0. The plugin can also have it's own settings which can be loaded from the iniFile and the section given as parameters to the initialize function. the id-parameter is used to identify individual measures if there are several of them using the same plugin. Finalize is called when the measure is deleted. The Update is called once per update period (usually once per second). The function returns the measured value. Check the Rainmeter sources for example how to implement a plugin. Currently there is one plugin distributed with the Rainmeter package. It is called PerfMon.dll and it can be used to measure NT's performance data. The plugin is the same as the PerfMon-measure that was build-in with the previous releases of Rainmeter. The settings for the plugins should be placed in the Plugin-measure's section in the ini-file. PerfMon
(Win2k and WinXP only!) PerfMonObject PerfMonCounter PerfMonInstance PerfMonMaxValue PerfMonDifference
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The Rainmeter can be
controlled also with Litestep !Bang-commands. !RainmeterShow !RainmeterHide !RainmeterRefresh |
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This program is free software. Like
Litestep, it is released under GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. Please note that this software is still in beta-state and is most likely to have defects and may not work as it should. Use it at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, direct or indirect, that this software may cause.
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The latest version will be found from my
homepage at:
You may also send comments and bug-reports to author: Please put the name of the product (i.e. Rainmeter) in the subject-field of the mail. It may be useful if you write the version of the product also. If you are reporting a bug, please try to be as exact as possible when describing the symptoms. Also some details of your system (like OS version, Litestep build, and so on) might be helpful.
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Here is some features which may be
included in the future:
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15 JANUARY 2002 (Version 0.6 ß)
26 DECEMBER 2001 (Version 0.5 ß)
1 SEPTEMBER 2001 (Version 0.4 ß)
19 AUGUST 2001 (Version 0.3 ß)
19 JULY 2001 (Version 0.2 ß)
22 FEBRUARY 2001 (Version 0.1 ß)
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